Emily in France 🇫🇷 Café Names Aren't Random
But le Maryland has nothing to do with Maryland
One expression I absolutely adore in French is Je me coucherai moins bête. Directly translating to “I’ll go to bed less stupid,” it’s often used when you learn something new and unexpected, little tidbits that, in my family, we refer to as Mac Facts, after my particularly fact-driven brother.
I must admit I’ve got a particularly voracious appetite for random facts – it kind of comes with the territory of being a tour guide, journalist, and proud nerd. But I came across one recently that particularly tickled me.
You may notice, as you wander around Paris – or, indeed, as you travel the French countryside – that many bars and cafés boast the same names: Balto, Marigny, Celtic, Maryland. But Balto has nothing to do with sled dogs, and Maryland is not a nod to the Old Line State.
Instead, these names come thanks to France's former state-owned tobacco monopoly, Seita, which once named its bars after popular cigarette or cigar brands. Le Maryland was a type of brown cigarette produced by Gauloise and Gitane, while Balto was a blonde cigarette with “American taste.”
These bars are becoming rarer breeds, with just 38,000 today as compared to 500,000 at the turn of the century. And their names are evolving as well.
These days, we're far more likely to encounter bars with a slight anglophone lilt to their names, sporting the confounding apostrophes Stephen Clarke epitomized in his A Year in the Merde that remind me of some of the improbable punctuation I once identified in Paris’ bagel bars. They’ve still got an air of “elsewhere” to them… just a different kind.
Now you know!
Cheese of the Week
Abruzzino is a smoked cow’s milk cheese with a semi-soft texture and touch of sweetness joining the lovely smoky aromas. Its balanced flavor, long finish, and slight elasticity makes it a favorite on a cheese board, but I also love the way any leftovers melt into mac and cheese for the perfect cheese pull.
To discover more of my favorite cheeses, be sure to follow me on Instagram @emily_in_france, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and tune into the Terroir Podcast, where Caroline Conner and I delve into France's cheese, wine, and more one region at a time.
What I’m Eating
The menu at industrial-chic bistro Semilla frequently offers variations on a theme: Appetizers often hail from the sea (as is perhaps apt, given that it’s owned by the same folks who helm Fish La Boissonnerie across the street), while ceviches and marinated fish are frequent fliers. But it's also one of the most reliable choices you’ll find to please both carnivores and vegetarians in Paris. More on the blog.
Where I’m Going
To New York City! So excited to spend some time catching up with my family and eating as many bagels as humanly possible.
What I’m Doing
1. Our next TERRE/MER retreat is on the books! Join us for cooking, ceramics, and yoga overlooking the Mediterranean from April 11 to 14. Book before December 31 to secure your spot – and to take advantage of 10% off.
2. Signups for the next edition of the Nantes Writers’ Workshop are open! In the meantime, be sure to sign up for our newsletter to keep those creative juices a-flowing.
What I'm Writing
1. Hemingway's guide to Miami and Key West – aka how to dine, fish, drink, and cavort in Papa's footsteps. For InsideHook.
2. Are you ready for dry-aged fish? This Michelin-starred chef thinks the answer is... maybe. For InsideHook.
3. From the archives: Matthieu Carlin’s Butterfly Pâtisserie is a veritable jewel of a boutique within the recently renovated Hôtel de Crillon. For Bonjour Paris.
What I'm Reading
1. Pomegranate offers a gorgeous exploration of love and redemption in this novel charting a prisoner and recovering drug addict’s reconnection with her children and reckoning with her past. I wasn't wholly convinced by the structure of this book, specifically the flashing back and forth and swapping between first and third person narration, but the complexity of the characters and true heart in the story won me over.
2. This profile of the last keeper of Boston Light, which delves deep into this essential tradition, now nearly lost to time. In the New Yorker.
3. This story about how TikTok influencers are reading the paper to their followers, which is equal parts brilliant and devastating. In Business Insider.
A bientôt !